Today is the International Day of the Worker, the Feast of St. Joseph the Worker, and the 84th birthday of the Catholic Worker Movement. Two years ago at this time I’d barely heard of Catholic Worker. Today, I’m kind of a Catholic Worker groupie (there will probably be more on this in future posts). I encountered my local CW community just over a year ago – not to give help, but to receive it. Although I did not need the food or shelter that my local house offers, I’d spent a long winter yearning for what they especially like to give: hospitality and an inclusive community. I relate so well to Dorothy Day’s famous statement: ¨We have all known the long loneliness and we have learned that the only solution is love and that love comes with community.¨
If you haven’t already, I would urge you to get to know your local Catholic Worker community. If you don’t have one in your city or town, consider starting one. They are a sign of hope in a world that is suffering. When it would be all too easy to yearn for the past, they look with hope to the future we will create. As fellow founder Peter Maurin put it,
The Catholic Worker believes
in creating a new society
within the shell of the old
with the philosophy of the new,
which is not a new philosophy
but a very old philosophy,
a philosophy
so old that it looks like new.
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